Roadie #42 - Blog #15119 October 2011 10:05 pm#42 and the tiny show in the tiny venue with the tiny doors

Neill Lambert (my keyboard-world partner in crime) has just been on stage to check the piano before the KROQ webcast begins. Before he’s even got back to our rig at stage left, Anchorman (my website co-conspirator) has emailed me a screen-grab...I point at the image on the laptop when Neill returns, telling him he’s just been live on the internet. His reply neatly sums up the timezone roulette we’re all living right now.

“Well at least I’m live somewhere…”

I’ve always tried to steer away from discussing jetlag in these musings, on the grounds that it could be construed as trying to make myself sound windswept and interesting by just complaining that I’m a bit tired.

Realistically, though, it’s pretty much unavoidable, given that I’m documenting the touring experience. But it’s working in a somewhat interesting manner at the moment. We’re in LA, which is 8 hours behind our beds at home. Usefully, though, a lot of the TV shows we have here mean early starts.

Initially, looking at the schedule and seeing 5.30am lobby calls was a little shocking. However, jetlag here means that we’re all waking up at four anyway - so maybe two wrongs really do make a right?(Guy with Coldplay manager Dave Holmes - early risers, both)

Today’s show is a radio thing for KROQ, who have been behind Coldplay here in the states since the very word go. The band are playing in a tiny black box room with a crowd that Chris points out is smaller than at their first ever show.

The building is so small in fact, that production manager Wob Roberts informs me that the only way to get most of the gear into the building was to take the single back door of its hinges. As for the Viva Tympani - forget it…

Yellow blasts the tiny space rather wonderfully and they’re off. It’s six songs over the course of two hours, but even so we’re done by 10am.

It’s difficult to know what the best strategy for the jetlag is. If we adjust to west coast time, that’ll wreck us when we leave for the east coast in a day or two - and by the weekend, we’re back in the UK and need to be alert and on the ball during daylight hours.

I’ve decided to follow my standard policy of simply feeling knackered, dazed and confused all the time regardless of what time of day it is.